What does a backup of all user-accessible data contain, and how to restore to fresh Android?

Using /e/OS Setup
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There are multiple guides to back up and restore user data, e.g. with restic or using TWRP

What I don’t see information on: What is included in such backups, and what can I restore from them?

My own scenario: I have a FP4 that has started acting up, and I suspect that’s because something went wrong with a previous system update (long story, won’t recount here).

The phone is not rooted, so backing up with the restic method will only include what termux can access, thus not the Android system, which is fine by me. What I’m not clear about: Does it include installed apps (all of them or only some?), and does include it all user data and configurations? I.e. are Signal messages, mail configuration, SMS, call log and launcher configuration etc. included?

And the second part: If I back up the internal storage (and SD card) without root privilege, then make a fresh re-install of the system, using the latest image, what do I need to do to get everything back in place, and in which order? That is: If I restore the backup first and then re-install all apps, will they find the restored user data and immediately be ready to go, or should I first re-install the apps and then restore the user data backup?

Most importantly: Is there anything that still needs to be manually exported and imported? I’m thinking of data and configuration of secure messengers (Signal and Threema in this case), e-mail, calendar configurations …
Just backing up and restoring “everything” sounds like a really nice thing, and I’m used to doing this with the user home directory on Linux but Android’s storage system is a mystery to me, and I have not found a definite statement on this so far.

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There isn’t. Android is not nicely organised Linux.

I think you need rather a strategy to back up most important things first, then watch carefully what other options offer. Seedvault [1] seems a good bet. Reading carefully what is can do is quite explanatory of why Android is so difficult to do “everything”.

[1] Settings > System > Backup

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So … does this mean that nobody knows what’s included in a backup?
There must be some true statements that can be made about what’s in and what’s out. This thing was designed by humans, so somebody must know more about what’s in and what’s out.

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